Bids are also expected from the Beijing Municipal Government's Beijing Capital Group and from a fourth unidentified bidder when Deutsche Bank, which is running the sale for Transpacific, takes final offers on Friday, a source said.

Transpacific, a Brisbane-based recycling, waste management and industrial services company, is selling its New Zealand arm as part of a broader push to exit non-core businesses and focus on its core Australian operations.

The unnamed Maori tribes, with hefty funds built up from state land settlements over the past three decades, are bidding as part of a consortium run by New Zealand fund manager Morrison & Co.

The group also includes Morrison's infrastructure investment fund, Infratil, and the state-owned Accident Compensation Corp, Morrison spokesman Mark Flesher said.

"There are well funded iwi tribes ... who from various treaty settlements from the government are quite large institutions," Flesher said, using the Maori word for indigenous tribes.

"They're investors in their own right. We've got two of them involved in this."

Morrison hopes the involvement of New Zealand capital will sway the vendors to sell locally, Flesher added.

Transpacific may still consider spinning its New Zealand business off in a stock market listing if final bids are deemed insufficient, another source familiar with the deal said.

Local media reported the deal could fetch about NZ$1 billion, making it the biggest in New Zealand's waste management industry.

At that price, it would also be New Zealand's biggest takeover since Chinese appliance maker Haier Electronics Group Co paid NZ$927 million in November 2012 for the 80 percent of Fisher & Paykel Appliances Ltd it did not own.

It would also dwarf Transpacific's sale of its commercial vehicles business to U.S.-based Penske Automotive Group for A$219 million ($196.26 million) in August.

Carlyle, Deutsche Bank and HSBC, which is advising Beijing Capital on its bid, declined to comment.